Makes Equal the High and the Low
by Hija del Angel
Summary: Byakuya didn't feel like showing off, that day he came to retrieve Rukia. All it took was a blow through the heart, and the cocky infant is dead. Unfortunately he is a cocky infant . A (technically) innocent human . A child of a mere 16 years. And Byakuya Kuchiki killed him.
1. Chapter 1

He dies, quickly, suddenly. Despite the phenomenal strength he has shown in these past months, he is simply outmatched, and it's a decisive blow, one he doesn't even see coming, doesn't even know _is possible-_

He hears it though. The world goes still and quiet, where before it was movement, and anger, and determination, and the urge to _protect._ For an instant all he can hear is the whisper of cloth, and the beginnings of a desperate scream that is quickly drowned out by the roaring in his ears.

He falls for what seems like hours, but is seconds, a hand instinctively lifting to his chest, where a blade protrudes through his heart, he is pretty sure. His sight darkens, color leeches out of his vision.

The sword is tugged out of him, as he falls, and for a moment, a bright _painful_ moment, light returns as does sound, and someone is screaming, and he knows that sound, wants to say something, wants to protect, so desperately, that he manages to reach out and grab his killer's _(and he knows he is dead, has seen death before, he just hasn't realized it yet) _shihakusho-

He feels _so cold…_

* * *

Rukia screams, her voice high, shrill, pained. Renji's arms holding her back falter, so she breaks out of them, racing to Ichigo, as small and swift as a butterfly, even as he falls, incomprehension written across his face.

His hand had instinctively flown to his wound, and he is sprawled on the floor before she reaches him, because she was fast, but not instantaneous, _like she could have been, __**should have been**_.

Her brother pulls his sword out. Time stretches and she realizes she is til screaming, when Ichigo's hand shoots, _fast_, to grab the hem of her brother's shihakusho, even in death trying to keep him back, trying to protect her, and she thinks for an instant he still lives-

Then she's by his side, raising his head, waiting for something, somehow hoping that it wouldn't be so, he was so alive a moment ago- But it's his last spark, and he chokes, coughs, and dies as she tugs him into her arms.

She breaks.

Rukia stands, laying Ichigo carefully onto the ground, and her brother, the _(__traitor, not a brother, she has seen a true brother now, knows the difference)_ captain, looks briefly lost, those eyes of his widening briefly, because this is the Rukia that wields Sode no Shirayuki, famed for beauty, in battle, not his clumsy eager-to-please little sister.

She knows her powerlessness then, unable as she is to access her _reiatsu_. And she knows she can die here, end her unworthy life where it is, having caused the deaths personally of two of her closest friends, two men she is proud to have met, the greatest warriors she knows.

But Ichigo died to save her, as did Kaien Shiba, so long ago. And Kaien's killer is gone, dead. Ichigo's killer stands in front of her, and if Rukia cannot kill him, if she cannot even make his life hell, headed as she is to her probable execution, she will expose him for what he is, a _child killer, _and drag what is most precious to him, his pride, _their name, _with her.

Her chin rises, and she lines her gaze with all the frost of her soul, all the contempt she can muster. Her hands are bloody with Ichigo's life-blood, and she feels her own blood drip down her cheek from her only hurt in the entire battle.

It is oddly appropriate.

The storm breaks, rain falls around them, as if the weather mourns with her, and within her soul there is a whirling screaming snowstorm of grief, desolation, and_ so much guilt._

Rukia speaks, and her voice is ice, "Are you proud of yourself, Byakuya?" It is the first time she has addressed him by name, or without honorific. He has gathered himself, and does not react, or even look at her, those steel grey eyes heavy lidded.

"You killed a child. A sixteen-year-old, _living_ child who barely knew the meaning of the word _reiatsu_." She gathers all the scorn she can pull into her voice and repeats, "Are you proud of yourself?"

_And I loved you!_ She howls soundlessly in the screaming snowstorm, gets no answer, _I __**loved **__you!_

"He has sisters, you know that?" She continues inexorable. "Two little sisters that have used him as their anchor ever since their mother died, whom he has taken care of more like a father, and who will cry, waiting for him to come home, grieve for him, night after night-" _And it's my fault, but you killed him_ she doesn't add, and her voice breaks slightly, so she stops for a breath. Renji is frozen still where she left him, hands reaching after her.

That too is appropriate.

"They love him, and he loved them more than _anything _and a society he barely knew the _name_ _of_, let alone it's laws, felled him for sacrificing his independence to save them."

Her voice is damning. There is bitterness in her mouth, and she is afraid of swallowing it down, afraid of the tears that lurk beneath it.

"Do you even know his name? Ichigo Kurosaki, he told me, when he impaled himself on my blade, knowing he could die, but with no hesitation because they had cried, cried for him, knowing he would come. He broke a _hado_ to run to them, attacked a Hollow with a chair, not knowing anything, but that it was a monster that threatened his family.

"So now, do you feel proud, captain of the thirteen court guard squads, meant for the purpose of protecting humanity from hollows? You have killed one of those you are meant to protect, an innocent who worried about his homework before _your_ sister involved him in an impossible world of monsters, and forced duty on him. You should have made him reparations not-"

"Enough." Byakuya says, _dares_ interrupt her. "Your crime stands. Rukia Kuchiki, you will return to the seireitei with me, immediately."

Rukia grants him a sharp smile, pleased in a bitter _(__and it hurts, hurts so much, and she won't recover this time) _way, when she sees him look down at Ichigo for a long moment before stepping forward.

Pleased that is, before she realises he intends to perform_ konso_ on Ichigo.

She darts forward, placing herself between them both, and snarls wordlessly. Her bro- _Byakuya_ stops, surprisingly.

This time she speaks, and her voice is raw in it's conviction, "_No._ You do not get to send him on."

He tilts his head slightly, considering, before clearly deciding to disregard her warning. He draws his _zanpakuto_, flipping it.

"I will intercept it." Rukia says. "You don't know what that will do to a soul like mine." Like hers, missing most connection to her _reiatsu_, a dead soul in any case.

He concedes.

She knew he would.

She walks between them, between her escort, and they don't touch her. She wonders if they realise that the snowstorm within her has stopped, crystallized into a brittle thing, and a touch could shatter her, she feels so _fragile_.

Her throat is clogged with tears, but her shoulders do not shake. Her eyes are wet, but her cheeks dry. She walks with pride, with the grace with which she battles.

And she swears closure. Somehow.

* * *

It's with deep regret that Urahara approaches another failure. He had not believed a Captain of the _seireitei_ would have killed a child, a _human_ child with such little compunction, believed it all the way until Byakuya, that ruthless _excuse for-_ anyway- had plunged his sword through Ichigo's chest, killing him near instantly.

He was too slow, too cautious, and once it was done, Ichigo dead, there seemed little point in exposing his own involvement. Not when he could still help somehow. Maybe.

He approaches slowly, reluctantly, and wonders, with a bone deep ache, if this will cost him another old friendship, reaches Ichigo's body, and kneels, smoothing away that last expression, those open eyes, with a tenderness rarely seen in him. His eyes are shadowed by his hat for a long long moment, as he carefully shelters the boy from the rain, though it seems so _pointless._

When someone groans behind him he remembers that Ichigo is not the only casualty in this. The quincy boy is waking up,

He doesn't turn, waits til the boy has dragged himself upright, lets the boy's own gasp, hastily indrawn breath speak in the silence.

It takes a little, but he turns, pulls himself away from obsessively running through his own lack of foresight, and the dread of what Isshin will say, and offers the Quincy a fake smile.

"I can fix that," He offers, gesturing at the boy's injuries

The boy, and he really needs to learn the name, nods subduedly, perhaps in shock, and he suppresses a sigh. Children don't believe their heroics can get them killed, and it's sometimes a good thing, allowing them to be so certain they can't die that they never give up.

But not always. He let Isshin's son go up against a _seireitei _captain, and look what happened.

He rises with Ichigo, because thinking of him as Isshin's son is just making the situation worse, in his arms, lets Tessai, conveniently there when needed, as always, carry the quincy boy, who may or may not protest, and moves towards Isshin's clinic.

He tells Tessai to take the quincy back to his own shop, but the boy protests, says something about needing to tell Ichigo's family, and Urahara is too weary to protest anything.

They enter the house, and Isshin is waiting for them, and the look in his eyes is familiar, that haunted glaze, the sorrow in the line of his shoulders, and Urahara knows, that Isshin already knows.

Urahara opens his mouth, _(to- to beg mercy) _to say something, apologize, when Isshin fixes him with one of his steady looks, and says simply, "Please, go."

It's as if every bad thing has happened at once, and he's lost a companion as long as any of the vizards, as close as Yoruichi, and his heart stutters for an instant before he bows his head.

Isshin sigh, shakes his head, "No, not forever, Urahara. Just," He swallows, "I can't do this with others around."

Urahara is willing to give anything, at the moment, whatever Isshin asks of him. Isshin, who follows him out onto the porch, to _so-carefully_ take the burden from Urahara's arms, and says "Don't- _don't blame yourself_, okay?"

Urahara nods, because what else can he do, reaches out to grasp Isshin's shoulder, and says, "You'll need to perform a _konso._" He doesn't think his friend has noticed, but he's wearing the black of a shinigami tonight.

Isshin simply replies, "I'll take care of it," and turns away.

Urahara doesn't think about killing his friends son _(he doesn't!)_ when he is flashing away, faster than ever before, discarding his harmless shopkeeper persona without care, the world blurring around him.

Tessai follows.

* * *

Isshin carries his son inside, knows, somehow that he is in his shihakusho, manifesting as a soul reaper for the first time in his human life. He feels Engetsu at his side, feels his presence in his mind, and knows it rains in there, that it has been overcast since Masaki's death.

He had felt, before Masaki died, that the crown to all his happiness would be Engetsu's presence. After her death, he didn't think it would comfort him to have power with which he might have saved her.

Now he has his _zanpakutou_ back and his son is dead. And in his mind, rain falls, heralding his grief, as it has since Masaki's death, since the time when none of his children would step out of the house if it was raining, times when he had to go collect his daughters from school because Yuzu had been crying for hours and Karin wouldn't let anyone get close to her.

He remembers the day he found out those episodes hadn't stopped after a few weeks, and that Ichigo had been going in his stead.

He remembers- and he wonders if he can go through this again.

He kneels, putting Ichigo on the floor, and pulls his bunched up _haori _off of his shoulder, and wraps it around him, leaving his face uncovered, hoping that'll make him look less dead.

He succeeds to an alarming extent. Ichigo looks asleep, as if Isshin has just carried him home after he tired out, tucked a blanket around him, because it is too tiring to carry him to his own bedroom.

He banishes the thought from his mind.

Isshin wonders how he'll tell his daughters that their elder brother is dead.

He sits there and wants this to not happen, _so desperately._ He want's Ichigo to wake up, to scowl, to snarl at him and dodge his attacks, and hit him, to do _anything except lie there __**dead!**_

He broke something, he thinks, or they heard Urahara enter. It doesn't matter what, except that his daughters are there, and the look from Ichigo to him, looking in through the door, before suddenly Yuzu gets it, and a choked sob later, she's hurtling across the room to land by Ichigo's head, already shaking her own back and forth.

Her breath is coming heavily, and Isshin knows he cannot be the only one breaking slowly at the sound of her rhythmic, _"No, no, no, no, no..."_ on her breath, when Karin comes into the room slowly, as if she is dreaming, and stops in front of him not looking at her siblings.

"Daddy," she says, and it breaks his heart that she's calling him that again, "Daddy, tell me this isn't real." He remains silent, and her voice breaks, "It's not real! It's_ not!_"

He just reaches out and pulls her against him, and she breaks within his embrace, her shoulders shaking as great heaving sobs are jerked out of her. She's keening softly, too gone to really realise.

And he just feels numb, terrified.

* * *

It takes a while before he comes back to a general consciousness. The cold doesn't go away, and he feels sort of bound, and it isn't comfortable.

But it's raining, and he's at the place where he- he died, he guesses.

Now what? He finds that he is tethered by his soul chain to the ground where _senkaimon _opened, and that he can't go too far from it.

He leans against the fence lining the road and waits, he isn't sure what for. Maybe some soul reaper will turn up and Ichigo can try and attack him.

He looks around thoughtfully and concludes, _with his teeth._

… why, yes, he's angry.

* * *

_Word count 2444, which is good. **Since second edit:**_ _This is no longer true. Just cutting down on sentence rambling, and replacing pronouns with proper ones occasionally._**  
**

_Now for evil cackling and general explanation. Because, oh yeah, I totally killed the main hero of a story in my First. Two. Words. _

_Which of you got that death isn't exactly death in Ichigo's life, anyway? It always makes me wonder what the screaming and 'Don't die, Ichigo!' is about, when you can drop by and see him in seireitei any time?_

_So I put penalties in place. Later, those._

_Oh. So I've been thinking about this scenario for a longlonglong time. Mostly the scene I pictured is in the next chapter (I think. If I ever write it, cuz I am unreliable like that) I also wanted an Ichigo that was kinda mad at seireitei in the 'you wronged me' sense._

_Also Byakuya, WTH Hero, you're not supposed to be killing high-school students, or leaving them in a street to die as the case may be. Really._

_Oh, so. **Edited, cuz I forgot authors note, which would be terrible, cuz I need some cacklings.**_

_**Hija.**_


	2. Chapter 2

The rain has died down before they arrive.

He is sitting on the ground, his legs pulled up, his back against the fence when they arrive, the long white haori he had woken up in preferable to the black underneath it.

Karin runs to him, throws herself onto him-

And falls through his translucent body, barely catching herself from hitting the ground face first. She is shaking, shocked.

Ichigo smiles, slightly, sadly. It isn't time to be angry, not with his sisters around him and nothing to protect them from except grief. _(They cannot see him fall apart. Ever.)_

He has been thinking, thanking fate, or whatever that has given his family this power, to see after death. Ichigo is glad he can say goodbye properly.

He would have helped her up, swept her hair from her cheeks, dried _(tears? Karin is crying? Oh __**no…**__) _her face, brushed off her dress, like he has so many times before.

But he can't, knows better than anyone that he is not just translucent in appearance. So he looks past, at Yuzu, precious, _strong_ Yuzu, who cried for their mother more than anyone, but took it on herself, at that young age, to fill in her shoes, a mother's shoes.

Yuzu, who stands back, looks at Karin kneeling on the ground now, her eyes tearing up, squints past Karin, and can't even _see_ _him-_

He feels it like a physical blow. How could he have forgotten? Yuzu can't- She won't be able to-

_(Unacceptable_._)_

Ichigo Kurosaki has spent his life making quick decisions in the face of unacceptability, and if he had lived on, he would have continued making them, split seconds to just say, _Whatever required, _and just do it. Death didn't really change much.

He makes one, and dives within himself, searching for the power that allows him to see ghosts, the blanket around him, grasps it, feels it morph within his hands.

Opens his eyes, to look at the red ribbon he's holding now, goes to his littlest sister, kneels in front of her, and ties it gently around her wrist.

At the ribbon's first brush against her skin, she'd shuddered violently and closed her eyes. Now Yuzu opens them, jewel-bright with tears, and throws herself at him, _and doesn't go through him._

Ichigo doesn't stop to wonder, just scoops her up, wraps her in her arms, so tightly, he can almost believe she's safe, she'll stay safe, even when he's gone.

She's whispering, he hears, just a repetitive nonsense murmur of, "Don't go, please don't leave us, don't go please, don't go..."

There is a patter of footsteps behind him, a small hand reaching to grab hold of the red ribbon, and a small body colliding with his back, a chokehold of thin arms around his neck.

Karin doesn't say anything. Doesn't need to. There are hot tears sliding down the the bare skin of his neck where she has buried her face.

His heart _aches._

Only after he has them does Ichigo look up, past the things most precious to him in the world, at the men standing further up the street.

Dad is in black, a dress that kinda makes him want to bare his teeth, push Karin further behind him, curl himself and Yuzu away, and snarl protectively, _(don't you __**dare**__ touch them)_ but it's his face above it, and Ichigo loves him, of course.

But he isn't alone. There is another man there, and he doesn't look very much like a shinigami. Ichigo ignores him, because he has limited time, and he'll save it for family.

So Ichigo stretches a hand to Dad, who, for all his faults, is his _father_, and Ichigo needs him right now. Needs him to take care of them, tell Ichigo he's fine, tell them everything will be fine.

_(His father doesn't lie to him like that, and Ichigo knows things aren't going to be fine. He knows.)_

Dad approaches slowly, and that hesitance is killing Ichigo, but he comes, and when he wraps one hand around Yuzu's wrist, on the ribbon, and his arms around his children, Ichigo feels warmer for the first time since his death, even as he hurts inside, because this is goodbye.

But they can't stay that way forever, and after he has basked for a few moments, Ichigo forces himself to uncurl a little and ask in voice pitched low, "So what happens now?"

The other man, the man that Ichigo dismissed, hasn't moved, and is looking at the ground, his eyes shaded by his hat, carefully, deliberately, removed from the scene. But for all that, his voice carries. "_Konso._" He says, simply.

Ichigo… Ichigo can accept that, actually. He will _never_ become the monster Orihime's brother became. He will _never_ hurt that which he loves.

He just doesn't see a soul re- Oh. His eyes fly to Dad's side, to the sword sheathed there. There's a story behind that, obviously. He raises his eyes to meet Dad's, sees grief in them, grief such as he has seen flashing through those eyes periodically since his mother died.

The story can wait, he thinks. It doesn't matter anymore. He tries to indicate that, doesn't know if he succeeds, because the grief still wells, barely banked.

But Dad steps back, separates himself a little, and plunges, into the unspoken conversation, now that he knows his dad is… dead? "On the other side, you'll be in the rukongai. Don't approach the seireitei. Just, _don't._" His voice is unsteady.

Ichigo doesn't know what the names mean, but he thinks that he'll figure it out on- on the other side.

The other man speaks up, again, "I'll send someone," He offers, quietly.

His dad takes in a deep breath, nods towards the man, says, "Kisuke Urahara. Someone bearing his name should be- be safe." Ichigo isn't feeling like the other side is going to be very safe. But then, someone from there is his killer. "Don't go mentioning it around, though." His father adds.

Ichigo's sisters are curling in tighter, holding on to him with all the force they can muster, as if they can prevent him from leaving. But he's _dead_, and he's not endangering them. Non-negotiable.

But if he leaves, who is going to protect them? Yuzu can't even see _ghosts_, let alone hollows, he doesn't know if Karin can, but Karin can see ghosts, and they'll be attracted to her, and in the past few weeks he has purified almost one a day, and they don't even have a sword-

"Dad," He says, breaking his increasingly frantic train of thought, "_You have to protect them._" His voice is, well, intense. He has just handed on the most important purpose in his life.

Yuzu can't even see_ ghosts._ How is this even-

Wait a minute. He is a ghost. Yuzu can see him. His family can _touch_ him. Because she's holding onto his power. His… spirit ribbon? The indicator of his spiritual pressure, like Ishida had said? Reiatsu?

How is that… actually working?

He has to try something. "Mr. Urahara?" he calls.

"Yes?" the man responds, and approaches him hesitantly. There is something there, but Ichigo needs to figure this out. Needs to know if he can maybe leave some protection behind after all.

"Can you touch this?" he gestures to the ribbon stretching between Yuzu's wrist and… Him. He looks down, to see that it emerges from his right shoulder. Huh. His father leans in, Yuzu lifts her tear-streaked face from where it was buried in his chest, and Karin stirs behind him, clearly interested.

The man reaches down and waves a finger through it. "Just like that? No." He responds. "On the other hand, I could probably force it. Quincys have some method. Has something to do with their abilities."

Okay, so Ichigo only got maybe the general gist of the sentence, but that was enough. "Now?" he asks, forcing himself to _want _the man to be able to touch him.

This time the man doesn't try carelessly, sensing something different, perhaps. He reaches to touch carefully. His finger rests on it, prompting a shiver from Ichigo. It feels a little… abrasive against the deepest parts of him, unfamiliar where his family's touches had not been.

"Ah," the man says. "Interesting."

They _have_ gotten a bit distracted, haven't they? It seems to have been a simultaneous thought, for Yuzu's gaze drops her head against him again, Dad involuntarily advances another step, and Karin's arms go from loosening to almost strangling, and he hears a low sob.

Ichigo's chest feels too tight, as if his heart is getting crushed, and he quickly heaves in another breath, pushing past it with all the bullheaded determination he can muster.

He shakes his head, decides to stop thinking, and pulls back from his family's embrace, gently unwinding Karin's arm from around his neck and setting her in front of him.

He puts both hands on his ribbon, tugging lightly, and shudders. It feels… odd, like he's tugging on his heart or something.

Karin puts her hand out towards him, saying questioningly, "Brother…?" as Dad takes another concerned step towards him. Her voice trembles.

Ichigo smiles _(it trembles too)_, loops the ribbon around Karin's outstretched hand, takes a deep breath, and breaks the ribbon.

For an instant, nothing happens. Then he falls, and **_screams._**

* * *

Karin's brother falls in front of her, hits the ground, making a sound she has never heard him make before, and indication of pure agony, an animal's scream.

Before she has even registered what is happening the odd man that had followed them here _roars_ over the sound, "_Konso!_ Isshin,_**now!**_"

Daddy is suddenly there, kneeling besides Ichigo, a sword in hand. It looks so natural in his hand, like it's supposed to be there, like something she hasn't even noticed was missing is finally there, that she doesn't even think of wondering what or why or how.

Yuzu sobs stifledly next to Karin, and that breaks her out of her shock. She runs to Daddy's side, Yuzu a step behind, falls to her knees by Ichigo, who is still making that awful noise, but it's dying down to hoarse moaning, quiet keening. His eyes are screwed shut, but for an instant they snap open, and she recoils; They are flickering between their usual white-brown and black-gold.

The instant they fall on her, on Yuzu, they turn normal, and he pants through his pain, "_D- do it… old man."_

Her father snorts a pained laugh _(it might have been a sob)_ flips the sword within the palm of his hand in a quick flashy turn, and gently taps the pommel against her brother's forehead.

The silence is deafening, sudden, as her brother's… spirit? Melts into beautiful silver-blue particles, swept away by the breeze. A dark butterfly flies past, rests for a second on her father's long nose, flutters so close that Karin feels a phantom caress on her cheek, and then flies higher, further, 'til it's lost in the dark sky.

They kneel close for an instant, unable to truly believe that is the end, that he's gone. They know something of grief, all of them. The knowledge will hit later. They haven't even started grieving yet.

Behind them, the odd man sighs, long and low, and leads them back home wordlessly, like bewildered ducklings, lights a fireplace in their living room, brings blankets and pillows and leaves.

They don't sleep that night, simply curl against Daddy on the floor, and stare into the fire.

_(They mightn't sleep the next night either._

_They are familiar with grief.)_

* * *

_So the scene that I first wanted to write was a dead Ichigo talking to his family, then his father preforming konso, and the butterfly flying off. Interestingly almost __**everything **__from the setting, to the wording, to the whole ripping apart his __**soul ribbon**__ (idiot little Ichigo, and I mean that as affectionately as possible) wasn't __**exactly **__planned the first time around. On the other hand, Hollowfication is so __**fun**__._

_Also, I am aware that nothing, absolutely nothing happens in this chapter other then loads of hugging, some of my ribbon 'speriments, and a little hollowfication. I think Isshin was supposed to do a "So proud of you, Son." speech. And maybe tearful speeches from everybody else._

_The text is 2011 words. Hah. It was hard, getting it to that length. And I had a mini writer's block __**in the middle of a freaking SENTENCE.**__ Urgh._

**_Hija._**


End file.
